
Pass \' - 



Book- 



i) n 



TE DEUM LAUD AMU S. 



THE 



CAUSE AND THE CONSEQUENCE 



ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN; 



S)lniiibrjiliinrj inniiijii 



DELIVERED IN THE 



Harvard 8t. M. E. Church, Cambridge, Sunday Evenlus, 'Biov. 11, 1800, 



REV. GILBERT HAVEN. 




But as wp were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak : not 
as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. 1 Thess. i, 4. 



BOSTON: 
J. M. HEWES, PRINTER, 81 CORNHILL, 

Sold bv J. P. Magee, No. 6 Cornhill. 

18G0. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the j-ear 1860, 

By John M. IIkwf.s, 

In the Clerk's Office of tiie District Court of tlic District of Massachusetts. 



TO THE 

HON. CHARLES SUMNEI^, 

Who has spoken the bravest words for Liberty in the most perilous 
places ; who has suffered in behalf of the Slave only less than those who 
wear the martyr's crown ; who has come forth from that suffering with 
the profoundest, because experimental, sympathy with the Oppressed, 
with a more intense hatred of the Oppression, yet without any bitterness 
of heart against the Oppressor ; who will stand forth in the future times 
as the clearest-eyed, boldest-tongued, and purcbt-hearted Statesman of 
the age, — these few words of Thanksgiving and Praise for the mani- 
festation of the Presence and Power of the Almighty Kedeemkii in this 
greatest work of our time, are most respectfully dedicated. 



^^ The following discourse is published at the request of many 
■\vho heard it. Candor requires us to say, what those who read it 
will naturally suppose, that it did not meet the approval of all the 
audience. Those who disagreed with it when spoken, we trust will find 
it less objectionable upon perusal and reflection. It would have been 
issued earlier had not illness prevented. Events have transpired since 
its delivery that might slightly modify some of the subordinate thoughts, 
but its leading positions, we still believe, to be true. A word of thanks- 
giving may not be untimely, when so many men's hearts are failing 
tliem through needless fear. The Spirit, through its servant, said unto 
the churches, when a far greater darkness closed around a far greater 
cause, "Rejoice, and again I say, rejoice." Shall not we then hail 
with rejoicings the sun of Equal Liberty, now rising upon our land, 
though tempestuous clouds suddenly rush across the glowing sky V 
They are clouds without water — clouds without the lightnings of death. 
AVith the brightness of its coming it will scatter all this darkness, calm 
all this tempest, and fill the whole nation with the blessed radiance of 
universal Liberty. The motto of our land, by God's goodness, shall 
ever be, as it has been, " Libkkty and Union, now and roiiEVER, one 

AND INSEPARADLE." 

Cambridge, Dec. 25, 1860. 



DISCOURSE. 



"I ■WILL SING UNTO THE LOKD, FOU HE IIATII TRIUMPHED GLORIOUSLY. 

The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." Exodus xv, 1. 

" But promotion cometh neither from the East, nor from the West, 
NOR from the South. 

" But God is judge : He putteth down one, and setteth up ano- 
ther." Ps. Ixxv, 6, 7. 

"Jesus saith unto them. Did ye never read in the Scriptures, the 
Stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of 
THE corner : This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our 
eyes." Matt, xxi, 42. 

One year ago last Sabbath evening, we assembled in this 
house to meditate on the beginning of the end of American 
Slavery. A fortnight before, a score of men had made a descent 
on a National Arsenal, freed some slaves, been captured by the 
soldiers of the Federal Government, their leader tried, con- 
demned and sentenced to be hung. You well remember the 
month that folio wed— far more exciting than the one through which 
we have just passed. For thirty days, from Calais to Galves- 
ton, only one name was on every lip, only one feeling in every 
heart. You all remember the day of his death : 

" Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright. 
The bridal of the earth and sky." 

Y^ou remember, far more clearly, the death itself, — more sweet, 
more cool, more calm, more bright, his soul's great bridal of earth 
and heaven. No death of greater beauty adorns the pages of sec- 
ular history — no one sublimer is in the annals of Christian mar- 



6 

tj'i-dom. Socrates, Avith the hemlock at his hps, was not more 
charming and chiklHke, Latimer, in the fire, Avas not more 
cheerful. Paul, among the lions, -was not more triumphant. It 
was by far the greatest death-scene in American history, and Avill 
shine forth purer and nobler with every passing year, and pass- 
ing age. 

A year has well nigh fled, and that life and death have been 
reviewed by me in such a fullness of immortal light as only the 
greatest sorrow can pour upon the soul. In tliat great light, his 
purpose and principles have only shone the purer, and I could 
not enter on the glorious subject of our present meditation, with- 
out repeating, as my maturest convictions, the approval my heart 
and your hearts then spontaneously uttered. 

We come to-night not to sorrow over liberty enslaved afresh — 
liberty, tried by the jury of the country, and without cause, with- 
out consideration, found guilty — liberty under sentence of death 
and on her way to the scaffold. No, thanks be to God, the be- 
ginning of the end of slavery gives us gladder scenes in the 
opening of the second act of its fast accomplishing drama. 

The defeat at Bunker's Hill and the death of Warren — a lost 
day and a lost leader, cast an immeasurable gloom, for a season, 
in spite of some redeeming features, over the American heart.* 
But the second great act, executed, hke this, in but little less than 
a year from the first, executed, like this, under the leadership of 
the chosen captain of their hosts, by Avhich a proud and mighty 
enemy, flushed with long success, and backed by the gigantic , 
powers of a great nation, without the firing of a gun, evacuated 
their most important post in the whole country, left it, never to 
return, — the great deed by which Washington purged Boston of 
its insolent and murderous foe, thrilled the whole nation with un- 
mitigated joy. So this peaceful evacuation by the arrogant, 
wealthy and long ruling Slave Power of the most important post it 
ever held or can hold, never to return, has caused such a flood of 
ccstacy as never before filled the liearts of this people, since the 
bells rang out the first declaration, and the bewildered multitudes 

* Sec iippoiiilix A. 



awoke to the realization of their existence as a united and free 
nation. The perplexing and saddening features of the event of 
last year do not mar this victory. No gallows tree stretches its 
black ai-ms athwart the golden sky, no dying groans, no stiffened 
forms attend the triumphal shout and march. Shall we not, then, 
come before His presence with thanksgivings whose right hand 
and holy arm hath gotten Him the victory. For promotion cometh 
neither from the east, nor from the Avest, nor from the south. 
But God is judge : he putteth down one and setteth up another. 

Not in the interest of the great party through whom He has 
done this work, do I appear, but in the interest of that cause 
which swells far, far beyond the power of that or any party to 
embrace, — the redemption of millions upon miUions of my fellow 
men. In their behalf 1 raise the song of praise. That redemp- 
tion draweth nigh. Power is passing away from the side of the 
oppressor. Power which belongeth unto God, is being employed 
by Him to break this infamous yoke. Shall we not laud and 
magnify his Name, in whose hand are the hearts of the children 
of men, that he has turned them as the rivers of water are turned, 
and made them sweep upon, soon we trust to sweep away, this 
rooted, and massy iniquity in their overflowing, swift rushing 
flood? 

You may ask is it not a profanation of the sanctuary to employ 
it for rejoicings over mere political strifes ? This is very far from 
an ordinary victory, and for its celebration we have the unani- 
mous voice of all ages and all i-eligions. 

Abraham praised God in a temple not made with hands, for 
the defeat of his enemies, and Melchizedek, the priest of the 
most high God, the type of Christ, poured upon his head the divine 
benedictions. The victories of the Hebrew kings were celebrated 
in the temple, and some of the grandest psalms were written in 
praise of national dehverances. The heathen have followed this 
natural sentiment, and in all ages and nations have hung the tro- 
phies of their triumphs in their temples ; have made their praises 
to their gods rise above their shouts over their fallen foe. So the 
Philistines rejoiced before Dagon, when they had captured Sam- 
son ; and, in a later day, when tlicy gained possession of the Ark 



8 

of God. The history of Delphi and other templed spots is but a 
catalogue of such thanksgivings. The Christian world has, from 
the first, obeyed the ancestral, human law. " Te, Beum laudamus,'' 
"We praise thee, Oh God," has rung through the lofty arches of 
great cathedrals, and against the dome of heaven, for more than 
a thousand years, when the Lord had given their country deliver- 
ance in the day of battle. 

We have, therefore, abundant precedent in the universal prac- 
tice of our race for entering these courts, to-night, Avith thanks- 
"ivinirs, and these walls with praise. Have we abundant reason ? 
It may be said that these religious national rejoicings were be- 
cause of victories won on bloody fields, v.'on over a foreign foe and 
at the expense of human life. Is a mere periodical strife, peaceful 
and bloodless, between brethren of the same family, for the honors 
of civil life, is this to be placed beside the overthrow of the Egypt- 
ians, the destruction of the Assyrians, the redemption of Europe 
at Waterloo, of Italy at Solferino ? Is it not straining a point to 
thus elevate the mad whirl of quadrennial politics into a great 
national, a great world battle, which marks an epoch in the history 
of the race ? 

These questions are very proper. For if it be but the ordinary 
strife of ordinary politics, although the Church has the guardian- 
ship of these as she has of every other matter pertaining to human 
duty, yet she might safely leave them to the general course of 
her counsel and authority, without making their ephemeral vic- 
tories subject of especial exultation. 

Let us then ask, as a needful preliminary to our songs of glad- 
ness and of hope, what Avas the subject of controversy in the late 
conflict ? 

The only subject set before the people was slavery ; its exten- 
sion and nationalization, or its relegation to the regions now black- 
ened with it, there to 

" writhe in pain, 
And die amid its worshippers." 

Four parties were professedly in the field, but only two com- 
batants, — only one question. In different parts of the land, the 
two intermediate parties took different positions according to the 



9 

sentiment ruling there. In the South they contended against the 
domineering passion for the national supremacy of Slavery. In 
the North they fought with equal zeal against its ruling passion, 
the national supremacy of Liberty. Their bands flew across the 
field, now striking at the haughty slave power, and now, at the 
iron legions of Freedom. 

Behind them advanced steadily the great hosts with their ban- 
ners flying, each glowing with its one word. On the one side the 
gorgeous black flag — upon it, lurid flames shooting forth that word 
infernal. Slavery. On the other, the lustrous white flag, "so as no 
fuller on earth can whiten," with the logos celestial, Liberty, flash- 
ing from its radiant folds. Marching beneath them, each party 
felt, instinctively, immeasurably felt, that the issue involved the 
most vital questions ever submitted to this nation ; and, that the 
result was sure to be disastrous to freedom, if defeated, fatal to 
slavery, if it should go down in the battle. 

No other question was debated by the leading advocates of all 
parties. One of the candidates for the Presidency, and one of 
the ablest men in the country, traversed its length and breadth, 
making many addresses ; and the burden of every one was 
Slavery. True he endeavored to exclude it from the canvass, but 
he could not exclude it from his own speeches. It rounded every 
sentence, pointed every line. And it was not a little remarkable 
that so sagacious a statesman should not have perceived, that 
what had filled all his public life, good and evil, for a decade 
of years, was not to be banished from the general mind, nor set- 
tled in the national councils, except by a fair fight on the appoint- 
ed field. 

The other party, though attempting to banish it from their 
platform, showed the impossibihty of the attempt in its very 
phraseology. For its two chief words, " Constitution and Union," 
proved that they felt or fancied these to be endangered by the 
struggle with slavery. Its worthy appendix, "the enforcement 
of the laws," was aimed solely at the execution of the most 
unchristian and inhuman act that ever issued from a Christian 
legislature. If it were not so, I hope that other law foi' 
the suppression of the sale of intoxicating liquors, which especially 
2 



10 

needs enforcement in this section, will be executed by this locally 
large and influential party. They will find enough Avho disagree 
with them as to the duty of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, who 
will gladly aid them in executing the most excellent of Mas- 
sachusetts laws in her rum-ridden metropolis. 

From the unwilling, but universal confession of neutrals, there- 
fore, no less than from the declarations of real opponents, do we 
see clearly the field of conflict. The real weapons of the real fight- 
ers were all drawn from one armory, all waged in one battle. 
The only speaker that advocated the Southern party in this region 
made the strongest defence of human slavery ever made in Mas- 
sachusetts. There was an honest boldness that was refreshing 
to witness, in inviting Mr. Yancey to give a pro-slavery speech in 
Faneuil Hall — a boldness no party would have been equal to in 
any previous campaign. The invitation Avas not accepted by a 
timid man. No abler, no bolder speech was ever made in Boston 
than j\Ir. Yancey's, viewed as a eulogy on a system abhorrent in 
the utmost degree to almost every one of his audience. As he 
was here, so were his associates every where on slave soil. As 
he was here, so would the advocates of freedom have been, had 
they been allowed to speak in Richmond, Charleston, Mobile or 
New Orleans. So were they on their native heather, the broad 
free soil of the North. 

Not a syllable was breathed against the candidate of slavery, 
except his devotion to that system ; not a syllable against the 
victorious leader of the hosts of Freedom, except his opposition 
to it. " It is the cause," then, " it is the cause, my friends," 
that has organized, inspired, waged and won this national battle. 
It is the cause, too, that commands me to speak to-night, to speak 
in my official capacity, as an amdassador of Jesus Christ, upon 
one of the especial objects of my mission — the freedom, equality 
and fraternity of the human race. 

Some may yet complain that we drag the holy vestments of 
the altar in this mire of social strife. Do you remember how Phin- 
ehas, the priest of the Most High God, possibly while arrayed in 
most sacred robes, and, in his hand, the sacrificial knife consecra- 
ted exclusively to the service of the altar, rushed in among the 



11 

sinning Israelites and their idolatrous associates, slaying heathen 
and Hebrew in the midst of their profane abominations ? And 
do you remember how that Most High God said to Moses, " Phin- 
ehas, the son of Eleazer, the son of Aaron, the priest, hath turned 
my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous 
for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of 
Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say. Behold I give unto him 
my covenant of peace : And he shall have it and his seed after 
him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood : because he 
was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the children 
of Israel." Was it a greater deed for this minister to stay the 
plague of voluntary passion, than for us to seek to stay that plague 
which makes pure and pious men and women the victims of every 
conceivable lust that power, avarice or passion breeds ? 

If Christ showed that the zeal of the house of the Lord had 
eaten him up, by scourging from the temple, the seat of civil as 
well as religious authority, those that sold doves, shall we say his 
servants are not his followers, when they seek to scourge from 
our temple of civil and religious liberty those that sell men ? 
The temple of our national hfe has become defiled. Woe to 
that priest who is dumb before the defilers ! In Christ's day 
some of them shared in the business that profaned his house. In 
our day some of them share in the honors and profits of this far 
greater profanation. Let us obey the example he has set us, — 
not the decrees of timid, time-serving, wicked men. 

But this defence is unnecessary before this congregation. The 
contest as to the rights and duties of the ministry to engage in 
this work has long been settled in this region. Here and there, the 
rare exceptions requisite to prove a rule rise before us, denying 
the privileges of humanity to those who are set to apply to the 
hearts of men all the laws of the Divine Author of humanity. Not 
so with the multitudes. Slavery is to them an object not only of 
civil, but of religious detestation. Its defeat, on any field, is a cause 
of rchgious thanksgiving. Its defeat on the field where it has just 
fallen,— the field it has ruled the longest and the ablest, Avhere its 
chief seat is by choice, and by necessity if it retain any scat in the 
land, its overthrow and its expulsion from the throne of the na- 



12 

tional government, its flight to its native lair, and the soon coming 
fight there for bare existence, these are subjects of the most 
devout, the most rapturous praise. " Not unto us, Lord, not 
unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and thy 
truth's sake." 

Let us, then, gratefully meditate on the late victory, consider- 
ing its cause and its consequence. 

I. Its Cause. Why has Freedom triumphed ? 

For two chief reasons among a multitude of lesser ones ; First, 
the growth of conscience as to the nature and effects of slavery ; 
and, Second, the growth of fear as to its political power and 
prospects. * 

The first and profoundest cause is the awakening of the con- 
science of the nation as to the dreadful character and workings 
of slavery. 

There must always be two periods, at least, of attack upon any 
organized iniquity before the tide of moral sentiment deluges and 
drowns it forever. The first awakening is moderately efficient, 
but the mighty sin is too strong for complete overthrow. The be- 
sieging hosts get weary and slumber on their arms. The enemy 
sallies forth and triumphs over them. They dwell in captivity to 
the evil they rose against. Again the conscience grows, again 
the vice is attacked, and in the new assault is left weaker than 
before, perhaps completely destroyed ; if not, the victorious right 
yields anew to the slumber of sloth and sin ; is chained and ruled 
afresh, again bursts its bands and sweeps on irresistibly to victory. 
Thus, by tidal waves of flux and reflux, the huge mountain of sin 
' is finally buried beneath the deep, abounding ocean of truth. 

So the Jews moved forward, from Joshua to David, in the sub- 
jugation of Canaan. So Christianity has marched, is marching 
forward in the subjugation of the world. So Grecian idolatry, in 
a hand to hand fight with early Christianity, fell and rose, fell and 
rose, weaker at each resurrection, till three hundred years after 
its first defeat, that form, eminent and potent for more than a thou- 
sand years, fell, never to rise again. So Roman slavery stag- 
gered and tumbled before the sharp blows of the same Apostolic 



10 
o 

Christianity, — sprang to its feet with the ferocity and strength of a 
wounded Hon and rent its enemies in pieces ; again felt the shafts, 
again reeled and fell, again rose and raged, till, after half a mil- 
lennium, the golden rule of the Saviour and the golden command 
of his apostle to Christian masters, to give their servants that 
which was just and equal, were finally obeyed, and throughout 
Christian Europe, property in man passed into the execrable list, 
abjured and abominated by every person. 

The black race, in consequence of its seclusion and degrada- 
tion, was separated almost entirely from this influence. True, 
Africa had been honored with the earliest, and, in many respects, 
the ablest of Christian schools. Her sons had worn the conse- 
crated mitre, and sat in equal authority with the Bishops of Home 
and Jerusalem in Episcopal Councils. But the ravages of the 
Vandals nipped this budding civihzation, and Mussulman fanati- 
cism perpetuated the work northern Paganism had achieved. 

Christian Europe, hemmed in by Mohammedanism on the south 
and south-east, and by the wildest heathenism on the north and 
north-east, without extensive commerce and without mechanic 
arts, itself the child of northern idolatry, baptized with the child- 
ish Christianity of Rome, grew, by slow and unequal steps, to a 
true manhood in Christ. So far had she retrograded from her 
earliest faith in the last two centuries, that traffic in human flesh 
was again found among her lawful commerce. And though she 
never fell back so far as to acknowledge the right of property in 
the white and Christian man, she did finally recognize the idea of 
ownership in the African race. 

It was reserved for this land to inaugurate the work of univer- 
sal emancipation. That work began Avith the beginning of our 
history, and has risen and fallen, with mingled success and failure, 
to the victory of this hour. Massachusetts first refused to receive 
a cargo of slaves at the same time that Virginia first welcomed 
them. The principles involved in those two deeds have been in 
conflict, violent or latent, throughout our whole history. 

The fundamental law, on which universal personal freedom must 
stand, the law of perfect equality before God, has long been set- 
tled here, has never yet been acknowledged elsewhere in the 



14 

world. America was settled bj the flower of Protestantism before 
it had fallen into the sear and yellow leaf of formalism, or the 
thrice dead infidelity which covered all Europe, Protestant and 
Catholic, in the last century, with thorns and briars fit only for 
cursing. 

Our fathers, the Pilgrims and Puritans of ]\Iassachusetts, the 
Baptists of Rhode Island, the Quakers and Lutherans of Pennsyl- 
vania, the Episcopalians of Virginia, the Catholics of Maryland, 
and the Huguenots of Carolina, Avere all refugees from religious 
persecution. Every State was settled or largely populated by 
sufferers for conscience sake. And after a few ineffectual strug- 
gles to employ the same cramps and fetters upon others that had 
been visited upon themselves, they arose, one after another, to 
the true apprehension of the rights of conscience, and Puritan 
and Episcopalian, Baptist and Pedobaptist, Quaker and Lutheran, 
Huguenot and Catholic, came to that broad table land of univer- 
sal freedom to the religious sentiment which is still the most won- 
derful characteristic of this nation. 

So thoroughly had this doctrine filled the air of common life, 
long before the formation of our confederacy, that only the' brief- 
est and most incidental reference to the whole subject is found in 
our Constitution. I have heard a scholarly Englishman complain 
of it for this very defect — a defect like that found in the Bible, 
w'here proofs of the existence of God, and the obligations of Re- 
ligion are never given, its every line assuming these as accredited, 
universal truths. 

So did our fathers settle the other great question — the greatest 
that affects our human relations — the absolute right of every man 
to himself. Advancing, not ascending, on the lofty table land of 
tlie equality of every man before God, they stood upon that first of 
human truths — the equality of every man before his fellows. 
While Europe bowed down to certain families and individuals as 
royal and sovereign by right divine, and, as a natural consequence, 
esteemed the other extreme of society, whether peasants or slaves, 
as void of all rights Avhich the crouchers were bound to respect, 
the American people, coming together, through their representa- 
tives, themselves the nominal holders of slaves, unanimously, un- 



15 

hesitatingly, enthusiastically declared that " All men are created 
free and equal." Such a declaration by the founders of a nation 
the world had never heard before. 

Their first struggle was to establish their own equality before 
King, and Nobles, and ParHament, and a haughty people. They 
must prove the fallacy of the divine right of kings on the battle- 
field. Only one great inspiration can possess at a time, a man 
or a people. This broad platform must rest on the head of king 
and slaveholder, but it must be planted on that of the king first, as 
the most imminent and dangerous foe. Hence the revolutionary 
struggle and victory. 

When they had emerged from that conflict — when George 
the Third saluted George Washington, and, through him, the 
American people, as his perfect equal, then came a second duty — 
to preserve this equality among themselves. How perilous was 
their state you can faintly conceive, by seeing how all classes have 
just been swept into the current of an unnatural reverence for the 
youthful heir of that throne. 

These patriots were born royalists. A vast proportion of the 
people were, in feeling and theory, royalists. Every city was full 
of wealth and fashion thus devoted. If England's royalty and 
nobility Avere expelled, might not America substitute one of her 
own ? Italy has just proved the passion of a people for a king. 
Mazzini and Garibaldi had to yield to Victor Emanuel, republic- 
anism to royalty. So might it have been here. Our fathers 
saved us by self-denial. It was a greater work to deliver them- 
selves from themselves than from England. " Greater is he that 
ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." 

Every member of that Constitutional Convention could have had 
an American title of nobility. Lands for the support of that title 
Avere more abundant than William's barons found them in Eng- 
land in the eleventh century. The leaders of the people, Wash- 
ington, Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson, would have been of the 
blood royal or next the throne. They saw the peril. They must 
meet it. Tliey did. They especially guarded against inequality 
of rank, forbad the receipt of titles from foreign courts, and steered 
clear of the currents that might sweep them into that channel — a 



16 

senate without pay or for life, an executive for life or for a long 
term of years. And they consumated their precautions bj one of 
their earliest acts of legislation — forbidding the increase of the 
Society of the Cincinnati, or even its continuance among the sons 
of the original members, as this society, being composed of the 
officers of the Revolution, might, through the fascination of the 
military spirit, endanger their primal and most vital idea — equality, 
liberty. 

As we have said, only one fever can rage at a time, only one 
great duty be done at once. Therefore, while their sympathies 
went out for the slave population, while their conscience told them 
they should be ecpially ftiithful and honest to these as to them- 
selves, their exhausting labors were in another direction. They 
rested from their labors, fondly hoping their children would take 
up and apply their great principles to this oppressed people. 

Of the chief revolutionary patriots, Franklin alone was an avow- 
ed abolitionist. Jefferson wrote against slavery, or rather wrote 
reflections upon it, but never Avorked vigorously for its extinction. 
Franklin cast his influence on that side, probably, more because 
he dwelt among the liberty-loving Quakers than from an inherent 
passion of his own. Washington disliked it, but when urged by 
Lafayette to make the experiment of emancipating and hiring his 
negroes, he declines on account of the embarrassed state of his 
property, and yet he died shortly after, leaving an estate estimated 
at half a million of dollars, which is more than a million at the 
present valuation of money. 

The fact must be stated that while faithful to one half of their 
theory, they were practically indifferent to the other. While 
abolishing all titular distinctions and equalizing all the Avhite in- 
habitants, they failed to abolish the title of slaveholder, and to give 
their colored brethren that which was just and equal. 

The battle on this field exhausted all their energies. To keep 
this liberty from licentiousness, this equality from familiarity, to 
preserve an aristocracy, to sustain democracy against aristocracy, 
to secure state rights, to maintain the federal unity and strength, 
on these important fields the war raged, and the servant of ser- 
vants was unnoticed in his servitude among the great questions of 



17 

social and political equality that so violently agitated the govern- 
ing classes. 

This work was perhaps as much as one age could do. It was 
certainly more than any one age had previously done. The men 
who achieved it were more than thirty years in accomplishing it. 
Thomas Jefferson wrought wondrously for the rights of man, from 
1776 to 1809 — thirty-three years of most remarkable service in a 
most remarkable cause. He was then past sixty — an old man, 
weary with the cares of State — not fit in vigor or vehemence for 
the great work of emancipation. Faihng to keep progressive he 
slid backwards, and dishonored his gray hairs by apologizing for 
slavery and defending the Missouri compromise. 

The genei^ation that succeeded them, as great men's sons are 
apt to be, were very poor imitators of their illustrious fathers. 
Most trees bear only biennially. Most generations are under a 
similar law. A great calm follows a great storm. The children 
of these revolutionary parents were feeble in principle, low in 
moral tone. They were tired of great ideas and great deeds. ^ 
The overstrained nature sprang back to the narrower range which 
men naturally prefer. The leading men of that age, men who 
have just left us, were far below their fathers in greatness of 
nature, and will be incalculably beneath them in greatness of fame. 
Clay, Calhoun, Adams, Webster and Jackson, its five representa- 
tive men, present to the historian no such lofty traits of character 
or service as shine in the names of five representatives of the 
preceding era, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and 
Franklin. 

John Quincy Adams alone of his peers held forth the light that 
glowed in his youth. But not he, till he had descended from the 
presidental throne into the vale of age and comparative political 
obscurity. Hardly a word of his can be quoted before his seven- 
tieth year, that has the ringing sound of liberty. How different 
from the young John Adams in the mass meetings of Boston, the 
provincial Congress and Independence Hall. Fortunate was he 
that those last few years and that congressional opportunity were 
given him. 

It was an era of the deadening of the conscience, on the sub- 



18 

ject of freedom. Church and State alike fell into the slumber. 
Political and religious compromises became the order of the day. 
The smtiment of the fathers was against slavery. But .sentiment 
can do nothing against sin. And so the sons came to endure, to 
pity, to embrace the unclean thing, and from Calhoun to Webster, 
fell down and worshipped the abominable idol their pious fathers 
had neglected to destroy. 

" New times demand new measures and new men." 

The new times had arrived. New men, and their new measures 
Avere not wanting. The third generation appears on the stage of 
action. The grandsires find their likeness in their grand-children, 
not their children. Thirty years passed from the triumph of 
Jefferson to that of Jackson, the representatives of the ideas of 
their generations. Thirty years have passed from the triumph 
of Jackson to that of the Anti-Slavery sentiment, not in the per- 
son of its recognized exponent, but still in the strength of its 
mighty feeling and purpose. This thirty years covers the era of 
this agitation, covers the adult life of its promoters. You will 
find on the Liberator of this year, "Volume XXX : " and this 
sheet has the honor of initiating the movement in this nation. 

The conscience was aroused very slowly. The deadly slumber 
Avas pleasant. Churches, societies, parties, every body disliked 
to be disturbed. But the young men sympathized with young Mr. 
Garrison and his young idea. Young Mr. Seward then emerging 
into public life, felt the throbbings of the new inspiration. Young 
Mr. Phillips and Mr. Sumner, then students at Harvard or on 
their way thither ; the youthful Tappan, and Leavitt, and Lovejoy, 
and Giddings, and Gerritt Smith, caught the flame in their fresh 
and sympathetic hearts, and commenced kindling it in the breasts 
of others. Dr. Channing and John Quincy Adams were almost 
the only men of accomplished fame that endorsed the enterprise, 
and they did not publicly cooperate with its youthful managers. 

Soon bitter conflicts sprang up in the breasts of these young 
philanthropists. The fresh armed men began to bite and devour 
one another, and were Avell nigh consumed one of another. Yet 
still the great inspiration moved on, through them, in spite of 



19 

them. New measures ■were required by the progress of the 
sentiment. The conscience growing, demanded a chance to ex- 
press itself at the ballot box. This was resisted by Mr. Garrison. 
He did more than this. Led by his love of free speech, he 
permitted some of his leading associates to burden the " animosus 
M?/aws"with gross infidelities and social absurdities. But its 
intense life threw ofi" all these deformities. Would that, in his 
sphere of effort, and to the measure of his large abilities and 
influence, he had kept this liberty from becoming licentiousness. 
Would that he, like Wilberforce, had kept his heart sweet with 
prayer and piety through the whole of this great war. Wiser 
minds, not larger hearts, took the reins ; or, rather, on different 
parts of the same field, with different weapons, they fought the 
common foe. 

This conscience has thus steadily increased until this hour. 
The vast majority of the men of to-day have grown up under its 
power ; for the mass of men are under forty-five years. The im- 
pressible youth of fifteen, who drank of this new wine when it was 
first pressed from the grapes of a fresh experience, is to-day the 
governor elect of your commonwealth. The poor youth of twenty, 
toiling in the solitude of western rivers and forests, learning to 
abhor slavery because of its contempt for honorable industry, is 
to-day the civil leader of the cause and country. 

Thus has the conscience which moved our grandsires to the 
great work of personal liberation, moved us towards the completion 
of their work, in the liberation of more persons than their valor 
saved, from a bondage infinitely worse than that which pressed 
them down. 

But, secondly, fears created by the rapid march of the slave' 
power have aided in this work. The growth of this power has 
been a necessary complement of the corresponding growth of the 
abolition sentiment. The Gospel is a savor of life unto life and of 
death unto death. Conscience is one and the same in every 
man. But conscience trampled upon, is sure to revenge itself by 
allowing the passions that expel it from its seat to assume a 
diabolic sovereignty. The Southern mind felt as keenly as the 
Northern that slavery was a sin. There was but one testimony 



20 

from the whole land in our early historv, and even as late as the 
lieginning of this agitation. But when the conscience began to 
be heard saying, clearly, " extirpate this evil. Let my op- 
pressed go free and break every yoke," — self interest said " Nay, 
I shall imjioverish myself by so doing. My mone}' is invested in 
slaves. My habits and tastes are educated in slavery. My 
heart incUnes to it.'' So they resisted the Spirit of God. They 
trampled under foot the national life-principle. They counted the 
revolutionary blood shed for them an unholy thing. They turned 
and rent those who cast these pearls at their feet, and who called 
ujxtn them to adorn their brows with their lustre. 

They began to defend the system through the press, in the 
forum, on the bench, from the pulpit. They sought to extend it. 
They sought to open the accursed trade which should populate 
their wildernesses with the barbaric merchandise. They en- 
throned themselves in the national legislature, in the prcsidental 
chair, in the supreme court. They trod out freedom of the press, 
freedom of speech, almost freedom of thought, in all the slave 
States. They were on the point of nationalizing slavery in the 
territories, in every free State. Their children, fifty years hence, 
will not believe their fathers zealously advocated practices so 
abhorrent to human nature. 

There was no real change in the Southern conscience. That 
still told them " You are verily guilty concerning your brother."" 
" Slavery is the sum of all villanies." I never saw a slaveholder who 
did not, when he spoke his real sentiments, make this confession. 

A gentleman who long lived in Alabama told me he had often 
heard slaveholders, worth a million of this property, say, " The 
slaves have just as much right to their freedom, as I, to mine." 
It was this conscience that made the whole South shake with 
indisguisable terror, when they heard that hero-martyr saying to 
their lx)ndmen " You are as free as I or your master. Here is 
a weajwn to defend yourself if they attemjit to enslave you. 
Here is one who will aid you in using that weapon, if they dare 
to attack you." Their audacious course consummated its malig- 
nity in the murder of that man whom every one of them knew was 
in the right and doing right. For thet/ saw, however blind we 



21 

might be, that he was of the blood royal of mankind, most of 
•whom rule the race from the scaffold. They felt that he was f 
proving in this deed, his lineal descent from the patriotic but i 
defeated Gracchii, and Demosthenes, and Wallace, and Hampden, 
and Vane, and Russell. But time would fail me to mention the 
grand list of martyrs for liberty into whose front ranks they saw 
him enter, who all died in the faith, not inheriting the pro- 
mises. 

This God-defying march of the hosts of Satan upon the sacred 
institutions, the more sacred inspirations of the land, helped to 
stimulate the already quickening conscience of the North, The 
heaviest eyes began to open — the dullest natures to stir. Every 
one whose heart throbbed with any of the life of their fathers, of 
their fathers' God, felt that the evil must be rebuked, must be 
repressed, must be extirpated, so far as any constitutional or 
moral power could do it. So the Church and the State have 
moved together, — here, slowly and cautiously, there boldly and 
manfully, every where motion, every where life, until the mighty 
work is wrought which puts our government, openly and entirely, 
on the side of Freedom. 

This then is the cause, this alone — the Spirit of God moving on 
the hearts of the children of men. " This is the Lord's doing, 
and it is marvellous in our eyes." " Not unto us, Lord, not 
unto us, but unto Thy name give glory." The Lord hath 
triumphed gloriously. " The horse and his rider," the Northern 
political slave and his Southern political master, " hath He cast 
into the sea." 

II. L(;t us 710W consider- the consequence of this victorij, u'hich 
is one in fact, though threefold inform. j 

First. It will suppress all efforts to extend slavery. Tiie', 
battle was waged at this point. Here, too, was it won. For the 
first time in all this long conflict the hostile parties agreed as to 
the object in dispute. Every previous Democratic Convention 
shut off the real issue from the people. The Whig and American 
parties, when alive, were ecpially careful. Tariff, banks, the 
Catholic (question, retrenchment and reform, all these have 



99 



turned away the gaze of the masses from their real danger and 
dutv. Mr. Douglas supposed that what had been, would still be, 
and therefore attempted to get up a Avar-cry that should mean 
nothing, while under its delusion, the people should again put in pow- 
er their haughty tyrant. But the honesty of the slave power swept 
away this subterfuge. They boldly placed at the head of their col- 
umns the universal supremacy of slavery. The free sentiment 
hailed the conflict. The deadly embrace is passed, and slavery 
lies prone upon the field. A tyrant once slain is slain forever. 
Error can never survive its Waterloo. Freedom had often fallen, 
but it rose ever the more beautiful and strong from its momentary 
defeat. Slavery has fallen, never to rise again defiant, success- 
ful. It will rule in New York and Boston before it ever rules 
again at Washington. It ruled there first only by our consent. 
We must rehabilitate it at home before we allow it to return 
thither. 

('' This absolute and unquestioned gain — the point, the centre of 
the fight is almost incalculable. Some speak slightingly of it and 
say nothing is done. The Fugitive Slave act is recognized by 
President Lincoln as constitutional. He will favor the admis- 
sion of slave states if they come constitutionally to the door of 
the nation. These are not agreeable sights. Yet, consider how 
unlikely they are to occur. What slave state will seek admis- 
sion to an Anti-Slavery confederacy ? As for the fugitive from 
slavery, unless vital modifications are made in the present law, 
the people will take care that he is not returned. Can one here 
be seized, and sentenced to bondage again as unrighteously as An- 
thony Burns was, and pass down State street in broad daylight, 
fettered by a squad of foreign mercenaries, when more than a hun- 
dred thousand of the citizens of Massachusetts have put the most 
eloquent defender of the Personal Liberty bill in the chair of 
State ? 

The accursed oceanic slave trade will forever cease. New 
York will be relieved from the miserable honor of sending out 
these vessels, — Savannah and Charleston, the more miserable 
honor of receiving their cargoes. Africa and Cuba will be gird- 
led with a movin"! wall of fire throudi which but few of the dread- 



23 

ful craft can pass. If nothing more were done than is assuredly 
don-e, it is wonderful, it is worthy of unbounded thanksgivings. -^ 

But, secondly, we have done still more. We have set our- 
selves right before the Avorld. Wc shall cast our influence, as a 
great nation, on the side of universal liberty. For years we have 
been a by-word and a hissing among the nations. Not a word 
for freedom could escape the lips of our representatives abroad, 
for they were bound, hand and foot, mouth and tongue, with the 
graveclothes of this body of death. Our influence has been 
against freedom every where, in every man. The conscience of 
the slaveholder, the conscience of the tyrants of France and Aus- 
tria and Rome, were stifled in the deadly air which our govern- 
ment exhaled. All this is changed. America will stand forth in 
the glory of her earlier, better days ; — in a glory greater than 
that, for we now appear as the upholder of the rights of every 
man, of every hue and condition. Italians contend for the rights 
of Italians, Hungarians for Hungarians, Englishmen for English- 
men ; we, alone, for the black race, the weakest and least favored 
of the children of Adam. Napoleon boasted that he went to war for 
an idea. We fought for vastly more, — the foundation principle of 
humanity, — the oneness in blood and destiny of the human race. 

This influence is worth every thing. It is irrepressible, it is 
unavoidable. The acts and Avords of the Administration will be 
most careful and moderate, but this power it cannot repress. It 
is an Anti-Slavery Government. It was created because it was 
anti-slavery. That word assures us that a new life is breathed 
into the soul of the nation. It will thrill Avith its enthusiasm 
every section of the land, every corner of the globe. Distracted 
Mexico will now turn entreating eyes upon us, certain to see no 
wolfish leer in our gaze, hungering to reduce her citizens to slaves. 
The South American Republics Avill sit at our feet, and follow our 
footsteps in the upward march to perfect freedom. Ilayti will 
stand at our capitol among the great nations, its representative 
sitting with those of England and France, in the seats of ambas- 
sadorial dignity and equality. Italy and France, Germany and 
En'dand, will, as never before, admire and imitate the mistress of 



24 

nations, sitting in tlie glory of universal liberty on the highest seat 
of earthly authority. 

What is better than all, the sweet, summer morning air of free- 
dom will once more steal over the hot and arid plains of southern 
despotism. Blowing from the whole north, through Washington, 
through the Executive mansion, it will nerve with vigor many a 
soul now paralyzed with fear. The minister of Christ, who has 
there, for these many years, denied his Master, will weep bitterly, 
and speak earnestly against the fearful crime that has so long- 
cursed the church and his own soul. Literature will feel it. 
Southern Whittiers Avill arise, Avho shall make her hills and glades 
echo with their trumpet blasts of denunciation, their trumpet calls 
to the conflict and the victory. Mrs. Stowes Avill spring from 
their own soil, who will portray the evils and wrongs of their cher- 
ished '^ institution," the duty and blessedness of universal eman- 
cipation, in colors that shall outshine their marvellous prototype, 
because they Avill be drawn from personal experiences, and filled 
with the enthusiasm that only such experiences can inspire. The 
Avhole people will be made alive Avith the mighty wind, blowing 
from the hills of God over their fields of dry bones, and they shall 
stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army, for freedom. 

What is already seen on the northern border of the black abyss 
will be seen every where. St. Louis gives almost ten thousand 
votes for liberty, as many as Boston, and, better than Boston, 
with these votes sends a bold and earnest abolitionist to the 
national councils. Baltimore gives over a thousand votes for 
freedom, — as many as the whole State of Massachusetts gave 
twenty years ago. That thousand has become a hundred thou- 
sand here in a score of years. It will become thrice that there, 
ere half that time has passed. In every southern city, even 
Charleston, the worst, will be found representatives of an anti- 
slavery government. In every State, papers will be advocating 
its principles ; in every heart the Spirit of God, which is liberty, 
will assert its claims, acknowledged, be obeyed. And that ser- 
pent, in whose folds a great multitude of Laocoons are writhing 
in unspeakable agony, " that great serpent, which is the Devil 
and Satan," shall be bound, shall be hurled into the bottomless 



or, 



pit, shall disappear from this first and best of lands, and, with it, 
from the earth, forever. 

For, lastly, this glorious victory assures the speedy abolition of 
slavery. I say, speedy, not with a few months, or a Presidential 
term in view, but with only a few years, in comparison with its 
long life and wide dominion. 

The knell of slavery was struck last year in the heroic deed, 
and more heroic death of John Brown. He first shook the totter- 
ing Bastile to its foundations. It had been riddled, it had been 
undermined, but it had not rocked on its base till he put his 
hand upon it. It reeled to and fro like a slave ship in a storm, 
and well nigh foundered then. I have frequently mentioned 
this event with Avords of approval, such as but few, probably, in 
this audience will re-echo. It is proper, therefore, that I should 
pause and give a brief reason for my opinions. Our satirical 
neighbor says the millennium is near at hand, 

" When preachers tell us all they think." 

I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God 
on the highest of our duties. I shall not play the hypocrite now. 
Allowing the largest liberty of opinion to others, I claim equal 
liberty for myself. I know how the tide of misconception and 
condemnation still sets against Capt. Brown. I know that the 
Tribune and Independent, — anti-slavery journals of deserved in- 
fluence, — still speak of his attempt as a " raid," a term of dis- 
paragement, if not of reproach. I know Mr, Seward said he was 
"justly hung." I know that many cry out with horror at the 
bare idea of putting weapons in the hands of the slaves, to main- 
tain their freedom, and say, that he that apologizes for such an act 
defiles his sacerdotal garments and is become a companion with 
murderers. 

But, on the other hand, I see how Victor Hugo and the other 
great and pure patriots of Europe can find no words to express 
their admiration of the deed and its doer. Struggling in chains 
of despotism at home, they know how to appreciate the intense 
humanity of one, who strove not to save himself, but others from a 
far worse tyranny than crushes them down. I see the strong 
4 



26 

arm of Massachusetts Avielding a sword, while she pronounces the 
sentence first uttered by the slaughtered patriot, Algernon Sydney, 
which might have been properly emblazoned, with Virginia's 
motto, on John Brown's banners, ^'- Unse 2:)etU j^lacidam sub Jiher- 
tatc qidetem,''^ — She seeks, with the sword, serene quiet under 
liberty. I see Hayti, the only really independent and enterpris- 
ing African State, hailing the man with a spontaneous, reverence 
and admiration, and out of her poverty sending to his family 
thousands of dollars, as a token of her gratitude. 

I find nothing in human nature, human history, or the Word of 
God that rebukes this sentiment. The gospel of Peace does not 
always require of its disciples non-resistance to every form of re- 
volting oppression, but sometimes demands of them a stern resist- 
ance even " unto blood, strivin<i; against sin." 

The Saviour himself, among his last injunctions, commands those 
of his disciples who had no sword, to sell their tunic, or chief 
garment, and buy one ; — thereby clearly teaching us, that the 
clothing needful for the protection of our bodies is not to be 
placed beside the means of defending our liberties and our lives. 
This enterprise, as we understand it, sought to put the sword in 
the hands of the slave, onlt/ that he might defend his God-given 
freedom against his enslavers. So deep and universal is the con- 
viction of this right, that had the people whom he strove to de- 
liver been of our own race, or even of any race but the African, 
whom we hold in such inhuman contempt, there would have been 
no more objection to the riglitfalness of the enterprise, than there 
was to the many unsuccessful attempts of our fathers to release 
their brethren from the far less terrible slavery, in which they 
were held by the Corsairs of Algiers. 

In the light of these facts and principles, I find no condem- 
^ nation for this man or his deed. In the light of its influence on 
the hideous wrong it assailed, I sec much in it to approve. I 
cannot but conclude, therefore, that the words of censure so rife 
at present are the offspring of long indulged prejudice, or when 
uttered by some of our wise leaders, have been prompted either 
by an unwise desire to commend the anti-slavery chalice to the 
lips of slaveholders, by removing some of the bitter but essential 



? 



27 

ingredients that strengthen the potion, or else by the temptations 
of ambition, — 

" That last infirmity of noble minds." 

In either case they will yet be regretted more than any other 
of their utterances. 

If this be called fanaticism I am content to bear the imputation. 
I am not alone in this state, however it may be elsewhere, if the 
late election truly expresses the sentiment of the people. The 
election to the governorship, by the largest vote any candidate 
ever received, of the man, who, more than all others, labored to 
save him from that "just" death, who publicly endorsed his 
character, if not the abstract rightfulness of the attempt, such an 
elevation of his best friend to our best office, is a strong evidence 
that our common sense and common humanity are getting the 
better of our fears and prejudices. The hated Mordecai already 
descends, here, from the gallows of public condemnation on which 
the Haman of a subtle pro-slaveryism had hung him, and rides 
through our streets in the royal apparel of executive sovereignty, 
as the man whom the people delighteth to honor. As if to show 
that this remarkable act of the people of Massachusetts was not 
the blind following of blind political leaders, but a silent yet real 
voice of approval, her favorite lyric poet comes forth and places a 
garland of exquisite beauty and perfume on the grave of the hero. 
Under the influence of his religious training, the Quaker Whittier 
cast upon his coffin a hastily gathered wreath of bitter herbs. 
But true also to the fundamental principles of his faith, through 
the influences of the events and reflections of the past year, he has 
discovered the " Inner Light" of superior truth, and with char- 
acteristic frankness, has published the revelations of that Light. 
A late poem, written on the lii)cratiou of Italy, by its own confes- 
sion, covers the whole ground of the present controversy. The 
laurel which he places on Garibaldi's brow, he hangs alike on John 
Brown's tomb. Hear the sentiment of almost every Christian in 
these true and tender and solemn words : — 

" I drcanied of Freedom slowly irained 
By Martyr meekness, patiente, faith. 



28 

And lo ! an athlete grimly stained, 
With corded muscles battle-strained, 
Shouting it from the field of death ! 

****** 
I know the pent fire heaves the crust, 
That sultry skies the holt will form 
To smite them clear ; that nature )iiH»t 
The balance of her powers adjust, 
Tliough with the earthquake, and the storm. 

And who am I, whose prayei-s would stay 
The solemn recompense of time, 
And lengthen Slavery's evil day 
That outraged Justice may not lay 
Its hand upon the sword of crime ! 

God reigns, and let tlie earth rejoice ! 
I bow before Ilis sterner plan. 
Dumb are the organs of my choice ; 
lie speaks in battle's stormy voice, 
His praise is in the wrath of man !" 

If the violent act of one man thus paralyzed this iniquity, much 
more Avill the peaceful act of two millions tend to its annihilation. 
Our righteous and peaceful course -will not be instantly answered 
in a similar spirit. It may at first, it undoubtedly will, intensify 
the rage that already burns in their breasts, seven-fold hotter 
than it did aforetime. This rage and fear will gnash upon us 
■with its teeth, will seek to frighten us, by financial crises and 
threats of secession, into submission. Let us not be alarmed. 
Let but Wall street look on and hold on, calm and cool, as Mene- 
laus did when Proteus sought to elude him by assuming terrific 
shapes and making beastly noises, and the monster now as then, 
will become tame and humble. Our greatest danger is in the 
cowardice of the moneyed power. The Church is getting ready to 
do her part, Politics is doing hers, and now the third of our social 
forces must do hers. If she fails, if she whines and grows pallid 
and begs her dear slaveholding brethren to desist, and promises 
northern repentance and its meet works, she Avill only encourage 
them in their course. She can vever change the course of the 
Republic. Freedom is more than trade, liberty than wealth. 
Our fathers have said so twice. We shall not fail to repeat the 
word, if it must be spoken. 



29 

The poor slave •will also burn in the hot breath of this fiery 
furnace. The master fears his slave more than he hates the 
North. He will feel the scourge of that fear. It is one of the 
necessities of tyrants that they can preserve their power, and 
even their life, only by the frequent deaths of their enslaved sub- 
jects. Sicilian prisons, Neapolitan dungeons, Roman inquisitions, 
every -where, every when, has triumphant sin taught us that this ne- 
cessity is laid upon it. So it is now where this worst of sins holds 
completest sway. No dungeon of Venice or Rome or Naples 
ever vied with CaroUna prisons or Alabama plantations in the ex- 
crutiating cruelty which the helpless victims of their fear and 
hate receive at their hands. When the secrets of this prison 
house shall be revealed, you will cease to wonder at the tortures 
of Messina and Palermo. No woman suffered there, only a few 
score of men. Here tenderest women suffer such cruelty daily, 
as hard-hearted heathen Rome, the most cruel of the ancient 
nations, would have shrunk from inflicting. Read Ohnstead's late 
" Tour Through the Back Country," and you will find incidents 
of these tortures, inflicted so coolly and carelessly, as show them 
to be a common matter of daily and indifferent outrage. But he 
never saw the slave roastins; at the stake. He never saw the 
fierce bloodhounds tearing in pieces the tender flesh of fainting 
women. He never saw, as a friend of mine did, himself once a 
slaveholder, a frantic mother torn from a nursing babe, less than 
a year old, and dragged shrieking down the public street of a 
Missouri village, by men who bore Christian names, and a white 
skin, and were, not unlikely, born in Puritan New England of 

pious parents. 

" On Iiorror's licad horrors aormnulate," 

and the longer we dwell on the dreadful theme, the longer wc 
seem to wish to dwell. It has an awful fascination about it, like 
the hungry, basilisk gaze of the anaconda. " It holds us with its 
glittering eye," and wc only escape by a strong effort of the will. 
We emerge from the dungeon so full of 

" Horrid shapes and shrieks and sights unholy," 

and breathe the upper air of liberty, as an angel might fool wh(i 
had escaped from Pandemonium revelry and outrage into the pure 



30 

society of the blessed. Alas, unlike the angel, we do not leave 
only sinners and damned spirits behind us, rioting in their willing 
wickedness, but pure and lovely souls, pure as the spirits of the just 
made perfect, lovely as their angels, who do always behold the face 
of their Father which is in heaven, — these we leave behind, suf- 
ffering such shame, such sorrow, such anguish of body and of soul 
as only God can feel, only He can relieve, only He can avenge. 

Thank God, that worse than hell shall be swept from the earth. 
The Administration may not, will not, directly, aid it. The party 
in power is forbidden to do it, rightfully, constitutionally forbidden. 
It can only be done peacefully and properly by themselves. It 
will be so done. The warm air of freedom gliding over all that 
icy region will relax, will dissolve these chains. The great ex- 
ample of eighteen States of the confederacy, voluntarily emanci- 
pating their slaves, or voluntarily endorsing the act by which the 
nation rescued their domain from its polluting presence, will not be 
lost upon them. They have lost the post of jNIaster. They will 
soon be willing to take that of a pupil. They will begin to see as 
they are seen. They have pompously proclaimed to the despised 
North, " 1 am rich and increased with goods and have need of 
nothing." They will now see that they are" wretched, and mis- 
erable, and poor, and blind, and naked." They will then come to 
that state of humility which will incline them to buy of us '• gold 
tried in the fire," the gold of universal emancipation, " that they 
may be rich, and white raiment," the wedding robes of liberty 
and holiness, " that they may be clothed, and that the shame of 
their nakedness do not appear." " They will anoint their eyes 
with the eye salve" of northern prosperity, "and will see." 
Thus learning, thus seeing, the generous spirits that now pant 
speechless in that prison of silence and death, will give their heart 
a tongue. The free, white, ruling South will speak every where 
and speak one voice. Tokens of such coming utterance are al- 
ready given. North Carolina has spoken through the lips of Mr. 
Helper and Professor Hedrick ; South Carolina hailed this refurm, 
at its inauguration, in the persons of her (Jrimkcs and Brisbane, 
and in this xevy canvass. Professor Lieber, late of her University 
has boldly denounced her treason and its cause, and cast his vote 



I 



31 

for freedom. Kentucky and Virginia already pour forth consent 
ing voices, like the volume and the sound of many -waters, while 
Missouri and Delaware are upon the verge of planting the standard 
of emancipation on the summit of their capitols. 

This revival of Jeffersonian, of Washingtonian aboUtionism, with 
more than the fervor and with more than the practical purpose of 
those reformers, on their own soil and among their own posterity, 
will sweep through the masses, and one fire blaze in all breasts, 
— the celestial fire of universal liberty. The straggles of the en- 
slaved, their sufferings, their deaths for personal freedom, not 
infrequent and not powerless even now, will increase, and increase 
the zeal of their generous advocates ; and ere the hundredth anni- 
versary of our nation's birth is reached, — the Fourth of July, 
1S7G, — we shall have completed the work undertaken, at our be- 
ginning. The bell that rung out the first birthday in the ears of 
all the nations, will ring out its first centennial with the prophetic 
words inscribed upon it, — '•'■Proclaim Liberty tlirougliout all the 
land to ALL the inhabitants thereof ;^^ — no longer prophecy, to be 
accompHshed by a long and perilous and bloody path, but blessed, 
unchanging history. 

We have given it a long lease of power, brief as it may appear 
to you, in allowing four Presidential terms to pass before it dis- 
appears. But we know that three thousand millions of property 
are not to be destroyed in an instant, except by a bloody uprising. 
We hope and pray that there may be no such reprisals. It mav 
go down by a bloodless revolution. Garibaldi has shown how 
neai'ly bloodless an insurrection may be in this age of the world. 
Had there been no standing armies in Sicily and Naples, they 
would have achieved their liberty Avithout the sacrifice of a single 
life. There are no standing armies in the Slave States. A Gar- 
ibaldi, from the enslaved race, may secure their liberation Avithout 
the shedding of a drop of blood. God grant that it may be so.* 

* The statcmciit of :\rr. nuciianan, in his late message, that the slaves arc 
l)ci-()iiiii)<r " uneasy," is a most icniarkal)lc confession of a most important witness. 
This uneasiness exists more in tiic Gulf States than on tiie horiler. For tiie latter 
gets lid of its danj^erous element tlnou;;li the two outlets of Southern trade and 
the niidery:rounil railroad. These Northern slaves, that have heen sold South, 
because tliey were nnmana-able, are united with the superior native slaves of that 



32 

But we look more to the liberal action of the white race than to 
any violent action of the black. We shall see the sentiment of 
the States gradually changing. Then their poUcy will change. 
Law after law, the worst, first, will be repealed ; until, under one 
grand impulse of conscience, they will pull down the whole fabric, 
and the slave shall stand beside his master, his free and acknow- 
ledged equal. 

All this will not take place without such commotion as we have 
not yet seen nor dreamed of. Threats of disunion, and probably 
a brief indulgence in that suicidal remedy, will be made by the 
more insane of the maniacs. We have seen some agitation at the 
North, in the last thirty years, some mobs and murders have des- 
ecrated the free States, in their endeavors to relieve themselves 
from the injlHcnce alone of slavery. What will not that bloody 
power do in a life and death struggle which is now to arise in its 
own dominions, where it has held unquestioned and unlimited sway 
for two hundred years ? The war has passed from the North to 
the South, and the thirty thousand votes just cast there for lib- 
erty, show that the war will not cease, come what may, fall who 
may, till that twelve millions are delivered from their few hundred 
thousand masters, and freedom of every kind, for every man, 
shall be the glad possession of the whole peoj)le. 

This must be the work of time. Yet the change is rapid from 
day-break to dawn ; more rapid and brief from dawn to sunrise. 
And when the sun rises, darkness flees to its caves, though a few 
shadows may linger among the rays till the mid-day brightness 
burns them up. So will it be with this cause. The day is 
breaking. A grey light streaks across the darkened heavens. 
The next Presidential election will bring the rosy dawn that will 
send its warm flash athwart the whole horizon. The third Avill be 
the perfect sunrise. The fourth the noon-tide glory, that shall 

section, who, if on the border, would escape to Canada. These violent and rest- 
less men, kept from liherty by a wall five hundred miles tliick, will, in time, in 
the very nature of things, rise upon their nmsters. These masters, by their mad- 
ness, are tempting the insurrection. There is the fire, there the powder. If an ex- 
plosion comes, it will come there first. God grant, the masters may escape the ter- 
rible danger by immediate preparation for ultimate, if not instant, emancipation. 



33 

consume every ray of slavery blackness that has laid so thick and 
heavy across the nation's sky. 

Let us rejoice. Let us shout for joy. Oppression shall not 
always reign. Oppression has ceased to reign in its highest, 
strongest seat. It will soon abandon its lower tlironcs of State 
sovereignty, cast down headlong by the people whom it has so long 
deluded and betrayed. It will then flee from those private, do- 
mestic seats of tyranny, upon the multitude of which, the fifteen 
seats of State authority have been erected, upon which fifteen, 
faithfully knit together, the throne of their national power has 
been elevated. An aroused people will extirpate it from these 
obscure, but central seats, and the gigantic sin that swells vast 
to heaven, will flee from the earth to its native, nethermost hell. 

Let us pray for this hour ; let us labor for it in all righteous 
and loving ways. Our real work is just begun. We have only 
broken down a barrier that opposed our march. That march 
must yet be made. We have only compelled the haughty trans- 
gressors to listen. Our entreaties, our warnings, our encourage- 
ments are yet to be poured into the opened ear. We have only 
attained the outmost edge of the broad table land of free discus- 
sion. The high land must yet be travelled. Remember that this 
deed is nothing unless it bring forth fruit better than itself. Hlhe 
object upon which we must fix our eye, the prize that must be 
won, the goal that must be reached, is the abolition of slaverVj^ 

THE LIBERATION OF EVERY SLAVE. 

Let us discuss, in a spirit of prudence and liberality, every 
measure that seeks this end. Let us bring every reason that 
worldly success, humane sentiment or religious oI)ligation can 
suggest to bear upon the hearts of their masters. Lot us aid 
those who are anxious to be released from this relation out of tlic 
abundant wealth of the Nortli, that they may not be kept from 
this duty by the gaunt form of poverty staring them in the face, 
and certain to be their portion, if they strip themselves of all 
their inherited, though unrighteous possessions. Let us, at least, 
assist them, if they need, or will receive no remuneration for the 
discharge of their duty, by providing for these emancipated breth- 
ren a home on free soil, which they cannot enjoy on the slave. AVc 



34 

must bring our money to bear upon this sin, if we would see it 
peacefully die. Let us do it wisely, generously, speedily.* 

Let us especially feel for the slave. The lot, the loss of the 
master is nothing to his. His is a hapless, horrible fate. Never 
forget him. In your morning prayers remember him upon whom 
the morning breaks, only to light him to his rewardless tasks. 
When gathering round the family altar and the family table, pity 
those who have no such comforts. At your evening devotions 
pray for those who go to cheerless couches, bowed down with 
dreadful memories and more dreadful fears. Remember that the 
Lord had these sufferers before him, no less than his chosen peo- 
ple, when he said, " This is a people robbed and peeled ; they 
are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison 
houses ; they are for a prey, and none delivereth ; for a spoil, 
and none saith. Restore .^" Never, never forget them. They are 
your brothers and sisters. They shall stand in equal liberty with 
you, delivered by the right arm of Him who saved your fathers, 
and who has just cast down their leagued oppressors from their 
lofty seats. 

What a day that day of deliverance will be, — the great and 
acceptable day of the Lord ; — a day sure to come ; a day, I be- 
lieve, soon to come. Behold that vast and beautiful region, from 
the peacefid Ohio to the sunny Gulf, from the swift INIississippi to 
the raging Atlantic, as it now rests under the gloom of this awful 
sin. All the refinements, all the enterprises of civilized hfe pause 
at its borders, or creep feebly through it like solitary star-vays 
through midnight cl«uds. The magnificent landscape is rarely 
cheered with the flying train, rarely adorned with the lovely ham- 
let, the prosperous village, the mighty city. The church lifts but 
seldom its defiled hand to heaven, and lifts that hand only to 
point to the judgment of God on its fearful sin in compelling the 
bride of Christ to commit adultery with Belial. No school-house 
appears, full of the neighborhood's children, no farms trodden by 
their humble, but independent owners ; no cv;lture, prosperity, 
piety. The sight most frequent, is the miserable slave toiling 



* See Appendix B. 



35 

with barbaric implements in the rudest forms of menial service ; 
or the more miserable white man, degraded beneath the slave he 
despises, idle, intemperate, ignorant, ill-mannered. 

Thus stands that vast land to-day. Let the hour come for 
which Ave are praying and laboring, to which the great deed of 
the past week has made the grandest stride that the century has 
seen ; let but that hour come, when every man shall be free, and 
how changed the spectacle. The wilderness, that blossoms like 
the rose in wild fertihty, shall be transformed into the smiling 
abode of free, industrious, intelligent man. Railroads shall rush 
through every valley, bearing the famishing of all nations to the 
rich treasures nature has there in store for them. Beautiful roads 
will wind beside every stream, scale every mountain, pierce every 
forest. Rich embowered cottages, such as no northern sun or 
soil can give, will line every pathway, will cluster in frequent 
centres, will multiply, at brief intervals, into great communities, 
with the great factories, and great warehouses, and spacious stores, 
and crowded streets of growing cities. The school-house, modest 
or majestic, as it stands in village or city, will be filled with the 
young of all families, white and black, as with us, unconscious of 
difference or prejudice ; alike growing in knowledge and affection. 
No slave whip whistles through the resisting air, rushing down 
upon the shrinking flesh of saintly woman. No agonizing hus- 
bands and wives, mothers and babes, are dragged to the market- 
place, and there torn, husband from wife, mother from child, 
never to meet again till they appear together as witnesses on the 
stand at the bar of God against these murderers of their liberty, 
their love, their life. No gangs of men and women, silent and 
sad, move monotonously over the broad acres, to the ceaseless 
look and lash of the cruel overseer. No Avretched hovel, with its 
earthen floor and heap of straw, filled for a few short hours with 
the half-starved slaves, blotches the lovely landscape. All these 
are gone, and gone forever. 

The white fields shall 'blossom under the free and active indus- 
try of every class. Comfort shall gladden every home. Willing 
labor shall garner the land. The free and happy, busy and jiop- 
ulous, wealthy and cultivated North shall cover the whole land, 



36 

and equal freedom and happiness, energy and prosperity, culture 
and piety, will be the possession of every man. Above all, the 
Church of Christ, the Divine Liberator, will point its sacred finger 
to the Infinite Lover and Redeemer of all men, to the everlasting 
freedom of heaven. In its walls, without distinction of color or 
condition, without negro pews, or negro galleries, or negro corners, 
all souls shall bow in the loving unity of " one Lord, one faith, 
one baptism," before " the one God and Father of all, who is 
above all, and through all, and in all" that love Him, equally 
and eternally. 

No dim and distant prophecy of millennial glory is this. The 
day is nigh at hand. It has already dawned. It shall speed- 
ily arise. " Surely I come cfdcldy. Amen ! Even so, come, 
Lord Jesus !" 



APPENDIX. 



bunker's hill and harper's ferry. 

The analogy between these two historic events has been suggested by 
several speakers and writers. It has not been as carefully elaborated as it 
deserves to be, and will be by future historians. It may not be amiss to 
state a few of the points of resemblance they will detect, both in respect 
to the enterprises themselves, and their real leaders. 

They are not unlike in rashness, viewed in the light of cool, sagacious 
generalship. Consider the former. Fifteen hundred untrained soldiers, 
with only four rounds apiece of cartridge and ball, planted themselves be- 
hind a mere bank of turf and sticks, thrown up in less than twelve hours, 
within a few rods of a ship channel, where the enemy's men-of-war lay, and 
whence they could rake them on three sides, and cut off their retreat on 
the fourth. Consider, farther, that a great city was less than a mile distant, 
full of ammunition and of thoroughly trained soldiers, and its nearest emi- 
nence, in height and distance, commanded their site as perfectly as though 
it had been perched over their heads but a rood off. Is there greater mil- 
itary wisdom in putting such a handful of raw militia into such a trap, than 
Capt. Brown showed in his operations? AVellington or Washington would 
have never undertaken the former any sooner than the latter. 

If we look at each of them, as they appeared to the hopes or even the 
dreams of Warren and of Brown, we shall find them not dissimilar. No his- 
torian ever has clearly set ibrth the immediate practical good that the en- 
campment on Bunker's Hill was intended, or desired to effect ;— we doubt 
if they ever will. It could not have been dreamed for a moment, that their 
position could be retained for any length of time. ^Vithout shelter, with- 
out rocky ramparts, or means to erect them, without ammunition, or cannon, 
or provision, shut oil" from all communication with the main army as com- 
pletely as if in a besieged fortress, they could not have hoped for any thing 
but a bloody battle, fruitless in its immediate results, even if successful, or 



88 

a final submission of tlie -whole force by the slow, but, in this case, most 
certain process of siege. Had not the British been rash with rage and pride, 
thej' could have had the whole fifteen hundred in their hands in less than a 
week, without the loss of a man, as easily as the Virginians could have 
starved Capt. Brown into surrender, had they too, had the grace of patience. 
It may be said the Americans made a blunder, and located themselves 
nearer Boston, and on a lower hill than they intended. So the leader of 
the Harper's Ferry enterprise said he made a blunder, and did not follow 
any of bis plans in entering the arsenal. History will give them both the 
benefits of their claim, if she gives either. What then ? The hill they in- 
tended to occupy is just as completely shut oft" from the camp, as the one 
they fortified. It has only one advantage over the latter. This one, is 
overtopped by Copp's Hill in Boston, that one, not. It is, however, within 
reach of its fire, as well as that of the fleet. The mountains on which Brown 
said he meant to establish himself, are not subject to like objection. The en- 
terprise of Putnam, Prescott and Warren, has not any such claim to real ne- 
cessity as must be allowed to the fight at Lexington and the fortification of 
Dorchester Heights. It was a trial battle. It would have always been 
branded as criminally foolish, but for the higher than strategetical, or so 
called practical reasons, which incited it, and especially but for the won- 
derful fruits it brought forth in the hearts of friends and foes. "Will not 
the future historian of the great conflict of slavery and freedom find like 
analogies in the events of Harper's Ferry ? In one respect we pray and 
believe they will totally differ. The former was the prelude of a long and 
cruel civil war. The latter, we hope, will prove to be the only bloody in- 
terruption to the peaceable progress of this cause. It will certainly have 
this relation, if the slave masters learn more wisdom from this event than 
our British masters did from Bunker's Hill. 

We cannot fail to notice the remarkable resemblance of the real leaders 
of these enterprises, both in respect to their o'wn temperament, as well as 
in their relation to their associates in the general movement. Warren 
differed as much from the other great leaders in the cause of liberty then, 
as John Brown did from those of to-day. His voice was fierce for war long 
before the others considered the argument of peace exhausted. His deeds 
were like his words. On the Lexington day, he was fighting in the ranks, 
while Hancock and Samuel Adams, equally great patriots, and esteemed by 
the king far more dangerous rebels, felt it their duty to seek safety in flight. 
His rash courage almost sealed his fate that day. For at West Cambridge 
a ball passed so near his head as to carry away the pin that fastened his car- 
lock. Had he been captured at Bunker's Hill, as he undoubtedly would 
have been but for the fortunate stab of a bayonet, he would, most certainly, 
have been hung within a month on Boston Common, by the Governor of 
Massachusetts, for " murder, treason, and inciting to insurrection." 



39 

There are only two points of difierence between these transactions. The 
first, that those who fought were, in the one case, themselves the victims of 
the oppression ; in the other, chiefly sympathizers with these victims. 
This is not quite true, though constantly asserted. For colored men, free 
and slave, were engaged at Harper's Ferry. Some were slain, some es- 
caped, some were captured and hung. It was planned and perfected, theo- 
retically, among the fugitives of Canada. Col. Washington's favorite slave 
was among the slain, and no one knows, no one can know, till slavery Is 
abolished, how great an army was pledged to meet at the rendezvous In the 
mountains. 

The second point of difference is, that much legislative and military pre- 
paration preceded the former encounter, none, the latter. It will be no- 
ticed, in connection with this fact, that the ruling government of ]\Iassachu- 
setts bad allowed, for many years, mass meetings, congresses, petitions of 
its subjects, the collection of military stores, and, at last, permitted 14,000 
of these i-ebels to be encamped under arms within three miles of Its capltol. 
Suppose Virginia had granted its subjects such privileges, would they not 
have developed civil and military leaders, and executed enterprises of great 
pith and moment, without the aid of a foreign arm ? Let us reflect that 
history, which is the voice of humanity, never takes into account, in Its ulti- 
mate and Irreversible judgment, immediate success or failure. The final 
cause rules here as every where. Warren and Bunker's Hill are still, 
and ever will be, the most thrilling names of the Revolutionary struggle. 
Those to whose liberty they are dedicated, have compelled all nations to do 
them reverence, by their own unceasing, enthusiastic devotion. So the 
like, yet far greater admiration of the Afric- American race, when they shall 
have achieved their freedom, will compel all the world to revere the names 
of John Brown and Harper's Ferry. Their representative shall yet stand 
with the descendant of John Brown and the successor of Governor Wise, 
In mutual amity and grateful reverence before a commemorative monu- 
ment at Harper's Ferry, as the descendants of George the Third and Joseph 
Warren lately stood, with the representative of emancipated Massachusetts, 
cordial and reverent, before the sacred memorials of Bunker's Hill. 



B. 

A MANUINUSf^rOX AID SOCIETY — Till; UIGHT WAY TO AHOMSH .SI.AVF.RY. 

We take the liberty of reprinting a part of a Irtter, whicli was sent to 
the Tremont Temple Convention of Dec. .'!d. It developes, somewhat 
fully, the idea advanced on pnge .'M, and urges what seems to us the most 
imperative and Immediate duty of all wlu) love tlie slave and his master : — 



40 

the employment of the immense private ■wealth of the country for their 
mutual salvation. We commend it to the earnest consideration of all those 
who are willing to pay as well as pray, for the extinction of slavery. 
******** 

It has long been my opinion that slavery would not die bloodlessly, unless 
I the moneyed power was brought to bear against it. All other forces are 
largely immaterial. They address the conscience, the sympathies, the 
fears, the abstract political relations of the slaveholder. This is primarily 
and pre-eminently material. Every body can understand what it means 
and what it does. Other powers expend themselves in words of denuncia- 
tion, resolution orlegislation, all alike costless and most of them, practically, 
useless. The bestowing of our goods to ransom the poor slave will appeal 
directly to the sympathies of the master and summon him to similar, and 
even greater sacrifices. Other activities awaken the bitterest opposition ; 
this disarms all hostility. For the warmest friend of slavery cannot become 
enraged at the generous sacrifice of private property for its extinction. 
Finally, by arraying the vast moneyed power in the right way and in the 
right spirit against this evil, we shall bring the least and greatest of its foes 
to one act, and thus gradually to one feeling, in respect to all the other 
right modes of assailing it, and so hasten the glad hour of universal eman- 
cipation. 

How then shall the wealth of the North be brought to bear directly 
against slavery ? Dillerent minds will answer this question differently. 
Some will say by colonization movements to Africa, Hayti, or Central 
America. Others will say by national taxation for the purchase of the so- 
called property. Without discussing these views, or those of any other 
philanthropists, allow me to say that, in my opinion, this can be most easily 
obtained and most effectively used by organizing a society, which shall secure 
10 emancipated slaves, homes in the free Stales, which they cannot now have in 
the slave ; and shall also offer to the master, if he is unable or timcilUng to 
gratuitously liberate them — a slight remuneration for his great pecuniary 
sucrifce. In a word, we want, A Manumission Aid Socikty. 

Permit me to notice these two points a little more in detail : 

First, We need a society that shall provide homes for those who would 
/be emancipated, were it not for the laws, almost universal in the slave 
States, which forbid their manumission on the soil. The cases of conscience 
are not infrequent, even in the present reign of terror, of masters who are 
giving their slaves their liberty. In Maryland, between the time of the en- 
actment of the law last winter forbidding the emancipation of slaves, and 
the fourth of last July, when it was to go into effect, between eighty and 
ninety slaves were set at liberty, in one county alone. Masters not unfre- 
quently appear with their servants in our northern courts to execute the 
deed of manumission. If a few thus obey their conscience under all their 
impediments, social, I'eligious and legal, would not many do it, if there was 



41 

a responsible society to encourage them, by receiving their slaves and giving 
them a comfortable home, and a fair start in life ? 

Those who are most moved to this duty have the most regard for their 
slaves. Many of them are ignorant of the North. Many have no means 
of giving them an outfit in addition to their liberty. They cannot drive 
them into unknown and inhospitable regions. Hence, they pause in J 
their ignorance and anxiety, and too often sink back into indifference, and/' 
die in that state, leaving their slaves to their fate. A Manumission Aid 
Society would remove all these natural objections, arouse the slumbering 
consciences, and meet with a hearty response from a large class of convicted 
slaveholders. It will find a home for the slaves, cither here or abroad, as 
might seem best in each case. It will meet the kind hearted master, for all 
such masters are kind hearted, with deeds that will speak more forcibly 
than all our words possibly can. 

But a second benefit resulting from such a society, will be the material 
aid it will afford to those masters who are almost persuaded to liberate their 
slaves,^ and who are restrained by the thought that the deed will utterly im- 
poverish them. We want a society that shall say to these penitent slave- ' 
holders, " If you will not <iive up your slaves without some help, we will' 
give you that help. We do not recognize your title to them. We, simply 
as a charity to you, give you a little out of our wealth, or out of our poverty, 
as would most frequently be the case, to aid you in following your conscience 
whither it now leads you." ^Ve sliould prefer, and, as far as possible, ser- 
cure, their gratuitous liberation. But the salvation of the poor slave, so^ 
near his liberty and which he can reach by so slight a donation on our I 
part, ought to urge us to this benevolence. Let us remove the chief, almost 
the only stumbling block that lies in the way of the duty of conscientious 
masters — the fear of poverty. This has been done again and again, in the 
temperance movement. It has in this. One of our greatest philanthro- 
pists and abolitionists informed me that on one occasion he ransomed ten 
slaves for Si 000, and on another, five slaves by paying S400. Let all anti- 
slavery men, through a responsible society, imitate this excellent example, 
and they will find hundreds of masters equally, yea, more liberal than these* 
wlio so generously responded to his generous offers. 

ISIany lessor yet not unimportant benefits might be named. Allow me to 
trespass a little farther on your time by mentioning one or two of them : 
First, such a society would relieve us of almost all of our present private 
donations for the purchase of slaves, which if they could be ascertained, 
would be found to amount to a vast sum. Much of this is obtained under 
false pretences, much of it is fruitless through failure to collect the amount 
required, and all of it very costly. For every one so liberated, ten to 
twenty, possibly twice these numbers, could be set free through this 
society. 

6 



42 

Another very important benefit would be the union of the anti-slavery 
sentiment on a practical and effective basis. The late election reveals the 
fact that only six hundred thousand, out of four and a half million of voters, 
are bound, body and soul, to slavery. However feebly the anti-slavery 
feeling moves in the breasts of many of the remaining three millions and 
nine hundred thousand, it exists there, and such a society would do more 
to develope it than any other instrumentality. 

But if we take Mr. Lincoln's vote alone, and join with it the abolitionists, 
whose conscience forbade their supporting him, we shall have nearly, if not 
quite, two millions of men, who are directly, and, most of them, strongly op- 
posed to slavery. Cannot this great multitude be united in a voluntary, 
practical measure for its abolition ? No such mciisure seems to me to be 
before the country ; none, certainly, tliat will enlist their purses as well as 
their hearts. Politicians are almost as cautious as financiers. The ]>arty 
coming into power is prevented from any direct efforts to abolish slavery. 
Cannot a society be organized in winch a!! can constitutionally, earnestly, 
liberally work ? Will not this society affbrd that basis V 

It may be said emancipation, by purchase, is no new idea. We at'icnow- 
ledgeit; if it v.'ere, we should doubt its wisdom. It has often been said 
that compensation must be given for the slaves ; but it has always, so far as 
I am aware, been said that such compensation siumld be given by tiie gen- 
eral or local governments to the local governments; — Co!ign;ss or the fiec 
States treating with the slave States, or the slave holders, as a mass. Mr. 
Webster advocated ajjpropriating tl'.e proceeds of the Public Lands for this 
object. Mr. Seward advocated buying up the slaves in the District of Co- 
lumbia, with the consent of all the masters, by appropriations from the na- 
tional treasury. Ilev. Di'. Bancs, and within a few vears, Mr. Burritt, have 
advocated special taxation for this purpose. Rev. D:-. Tliomson, in the 
Christian Advocate and Journal, and Mr. Thurlow Weed, in the Albany 
Journal, have lately advanced similar ideas. All of these are misled by 
the Entrlisli mode of abolishing slavery. Our governments, local or na- 
tional, unlike the European governments, rarely engage in works of pure 
benevolence. They'hei[) them, but they ilo not institute or maintain tlicm. 
This is done almost exclusively by voluntary societies. All of our religious, 
and almost all of our charitable and higher educational movements, are 
managed by such organizations. The jieculiarily of the idea we advocat*.; 
is, that it conforms to these habits and tasfis of our people. It is a voltm- 
tary society, like, the American Colonization or Kansas Aid Societies, boiii 
of wi)i<!h have been aided by State ajijiropriatiosis. 

Let it once enter the list of our ch;irllics, and it would speedily surpass 
them all. Scores of men and women wii! be tiju;;d in every village, huri- 
dreds in every city, who will collect moneys fbr its ttc.isury, and will assist 
in securing iijr the ^iaves that couus into its hands, ;ilea>aat and pro^peiuus 



43 

homes. INIoney would pour into its coffers from all classes, from those of 
every shaile of opinion. 

The greatest of these voluntary charities, the American Bible Society, 
has an annual income of about S4o0,000. But this society has not a tithe 
of the hold upon the hearts of the people, nor can it elicit but a fraction of 
the support that a Manumission Aid Society, rij^htly organized and officered, 
could command. Yet consider how powerful a society would be, receiving, 
as a free gift, such an annual income as this, and expending it in the ran- 
som of slaves and their home or foreign colonization. But such a society 
would have a much larger income than this. No Legislature, State or Na- 
tional, aids the Bible Society. They would all aid one devoted to the 
cause of voluntary emancipation. Mr. Everett, who has by his eloquence 
rescued the home of AVashington from infamy, would be imitated by hun- 
dreds of orators, laboring to rescue the land of Washington from far deeper 
infamy. Perhaps he would himself lead these followers in this noblest of 
enterprises. If each of the two millions of avowed opponents of slavery 
give an average of one dollar per annum, for its peaceful extinction, we 
should have two millions of dollars for annual disbursement. We believe a 
larger income than this could be secured ; for multitudes. South as well as 
North, slaveholders and non-slaveholders, who would not vote directly 
against slavery, would gladly aid in such an effort to exterminate it. Thus, 
with abundant means at command, it would rapidly eliminate the conscien-. 
tious masters from their more violent and wicked associates, and even these \ 
bitter enemies of freedom, melted by our large liberality, would cease to 
rage, cease to resist, until finally, all conspiring together, the South and the 
North, by private and public charity, by State and National appropriations, 
the great initpiity shall be lifted from every neck, and all sit in freedom 
and happiness under the equal protection of justice and liberty. Lest this 
estimate should appear extravagant, allow me to quote an extract from Mr. 
Emerson's speech in New York, in 185G. By inserting the word "Soci- 
ety" for " State," we have the very idea of this association, and an eloquent 
statement of its means and results. 

" Why, in the name of common sense and the peace of mankind, is not 
the summary or gradual abolition of slavery, in accfu'dance with the inter- 
ests of the South and tiie settled conscience of tlie North, made tlu- subject 
of instant negotiation and settlement ? Because it is proi)erty V Then it 
has a price. It is not a really great task to buy that jiropcrty of the 
planter. I say, buy, never conceding the right of the plantei' to own, but 
acknowledging tlie calamity of his position and willing to bear a country- 
nian's share in relieving liini, and bec;uise it is the (iiili/ praclicdhle course, 
and is innocent. [Louil applauso.] AVas there ever any contribution so 
enlliusiastically ])aul as this will be V Eveiy man will bear his jiart. We 
will give u[) (Kir coaches, and wine and watches. The church will nu-lt its 
])la(c. The Fatiicr of his country shall wait, well ple;ised, a little longer 
fen- his monument. Fi-anklin shall wait tor his, tlie Pilgrim Fathers fur 
theirs, and Columbus, who uailed all his mortality for justice, shall wail a 



44 * "" 

<f 

part of his immortality also. We will call upon those rich beneficiaries who 
found asylums, hospitals, Lowell institutes and Astor libraries, upon wealthy 
bachelors and wealthy maidens, to make the State [Society] their heirs, as 
they were wont to do at Rome. The rich shall jrive of tlieir riches, the 
merchants of their commerce, the mechanics their strength ; the needle 
women will give, and the children will have a cent society. Every man in 
the land would give a week's work to dig away this accursed mountain of 
slavery, and force it forever out of the world." 

These views are submitted with the hope that they will aid in the peace- 
ful settlement of the most important and most dilijcult question that ia before 
the age. 






"#W^fc 





LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 895 754 4 



I 



